What

...happened?

    It was dark. Her head hurt. Her leg hurt. Heck, everything hurt. It was a while before she took up the challenge to open her eyes, and when she did she saw.... nothing.

    She closed and then opened her jade eyes again, confirming she actually did opened them the first time, but still, only darkness greeted her. Then a soft click sounded to her left and a tiny warm glow caught her attention. Turning her head slowly, trying not to pull out too much of her hair that matted to the wall with blood, she squinted at the small flame. The small flame coming from a cheap lighter.

A cheap lighter that was held by a young man with haunting cerulean eyes.

    Briefly, she remembered vaguely what had happened.

    "An earthquake?" she asked, turning around to look at her surroundings.

    "Yeah..."

    ‘I remember now..’ she thought while fingering the bleeding bump on her head, eliciting a small "ouch" from her. It still hurt a lot but she was relieved that it didn't seem to have resulted in any sort of concussion. ‘I was leaving the apartment... Got into the elevator... Earthquake?’ Yes, the elevator had been just about to reach the ground floor when it shook violently and dropped the rest of the way. She had lost her balance and smacked into the metal wall causing a nice dent in both the wall and her skull. ‘Oh God, thank You I'm still alive...’

    Kate Bakely sent another thanks to her Father in heaven before standing up and checking for other injuries. The young man in the compartment watched silently before releasing the lighter as it started to heat up his thumb. 'Well, I could have used the light... guess I have to just feel it,' she sighed before stretching to see if anything was broken, torn, dislocated or crushed. So far, she found only the bleeding bump on her head, an aching right hip, bleeding knee and badly bruised right arm. 'I must have really crashed into the wall...'

    Re-tying her messed up ponytail and wiping as much blood off her face (to which she found her left cheek scraped up—how did that happen?), she put a hand out to the wall on her right and gathered her wits. 'Okay, Kate.... Jesus is right here with you. There is nothing to fear.' Taking a deep breath she squinted into the darkness. The lighter was lit again suddenly and she took the chance to look around the crushed compartment. The walls were dented in and the sliding doors twisted shut; glancing up at the ceiling she saw that it was precariously leaning in, like there were some heavy debris on top of it.

    "We got to find a way out... Can you walk?"

    "No use. We'll die here before anyone finds us," came the cold baritone voice of the young man sitting across to her left. Turning her head to face him the reply came almost instantly from her.

    "No we won't... God will help us get through," a smile forming on her face as always when she refers to Him.

    "God? Hah!" he retorted, malice seeping into his voice, "It's probably that God of yours that got us here in the first place." He turned his deep cerulean eyes at her, seemingly to challenge the fact that if there is a God, then that meant this would be His doing, and thus Him to blame. "Say what you want..." he continued, "I checked, there's no way out..."

    She was like that once, always blaming everything on God. Giving up at the slightest obstacle. She been there, felt it. Not the least bit daunted she lightly smiled at him as he raised his eyebrow ever so little at her expression. "... Maybe you should have just asked Him then." The tiny trace of confusion and curiosity that flitted across his face prompted her to explain. "You'll be surprised at the power of His name," she told him while leaning a bit more to the right wall, "You know, Jeee--"

Crumbling and cracking filled the compartment as the wall Kate was leaning on started to tilt backwards.

    "--EEEEEEEE---"

She couldn't stop her momentum as she started to fall along, flailing her arms unable to get her balance back.

    "--SUUUSSSAAAAAHHH!!!!"

    The heavy metal came completely off, crashing onto the shaft walls of the elevator and bringing up dust in a choking cloud. Debris rained down from above as the dust settled, revealing a way to escape from the compartment. Kate coughed as she got up, dusting away at her white blouse and black skirt.

    “Ugh...” she moaned while peeking her head cautiously out to look above. "Hey! There's a way out!!" From what little light that shined through the dark shaft, she could see the ring of metal ladders up along the walls. "There are some emergency ladders we can use!!"

    They could climb up and find a floor to which they can get out from. After that they just have to find a way back down to the ground floor or wait till rescuers come. Kate twirled around to face the young man, excitement evident on her face. "See? As simple as that!!"

    Of course, Joseph Williams was speechless. He hadn't been knocked out like the girl, though he did have a similar bleeding wound to his head, and had been kicking at the walls for quite sometime. Maybe his kicking made it unstable? Which was why all she had to do was lean on it to have it come off?
The elevator compartment was made of metal, steel, whatever... So, it shouldn't just come off like that... Right?

He wisely chose not to dwell on the matter. His head hurt enough as it was.

    In midst of his ponderings she had turned fully to face him, a smile on her face. "By the way, my name's Kate!" He himself did not care what the hell her name was. It was not like they would even have to talk to each other.

    However, strangely, he felt willing to comply, "...Joseph." he simply stated.

    "Joseph, that's a nice name, you must be a dreamer," Kate said jokingly. He didn't quite know how to reply and chose to just put on a puzzled face. The girl then laughed lightly, waving in a dismissive gesture for him to not to think about it.

    They eventually had to climb up till the fourth or third floor; it was hard to tell in the darkness. Walking along the destroyed halls, it was eerie that nothing moved. It hadn't been a large earthquake, but enough to crumble the five story apartment. Kate just hoped the foundation will hold until they get out, or at least till rescuers come. They had walked along side by side in a comfortable silence, only the sound of their shoes and an occasional crumble could be heard. Joseph's lighter cast shadows on the walls, but Kate knew there was nothing to fear. 'Even in the valley of the shadow of death...' she thought in amusement.

Then something caught her eye.

    "... God can help you know..."

    He looked down at the girl, finding her expressionless face focused on his right wrist. He followed her gaze already knowing what she was looking at. Six stitches made a track diagonally down. The skin was still a bit red, proving that it was something done recently. He didn't find the need to deny it; it was clear what it was. He knew, she knew. Getting a bit angry for being preached by someone who knew nothing, he at least tried to keep the bitterness out of his voice.

    "What would you know—"

    "More than you think, I actually succeeded..."

    Okay, maybe he heard that wrong. From all the things he expected her to answer, that was definitely not one of them. And succeeded? If she succeeded then that meant...

    "I died... My heart stopped... I guess the combination of drugs and blood loss does that to a person."

    Three years ago when she was fourteen, Kate had held the knife in her hands. She was a bit out of it, cocaine making it seem like something she just had to do. She had nearly died overdosing the year before but of course that didn't deter her from going on with her addiction. She needed it. The only way for her to forget and to feel good was when she was flying, the feeling of freedom coursing through her veins. Forget that her mother was a whore. That she herself was a whore. That all the shit in her life ever happened.

Her mother had gotten pregnant at fourteen and was disowned. She tried to hold a job but ended up being a prostitute to raise her daughter. Not surprisingly Kate herself turned out to be one, even at so young an age. Her mother was an alcoholic and in her frequent drunken tantrums beat Kate senseless all the while calling her what she was, a whore. That night she simply snapped... She wanted to be free and run away.

The blade felt delicious on her skin. The blood warm to her touch.

    "But I survived because my mom called to Him...," Kate smiled warmly still somewhat amazed by it all. "My mom who hit me and never uttered a good word to anyone in her miserable life…"

Her mother was screaming, hitting her. Kate pleaded, begged for her to stop, but her mother kept going, screaming for Kate to die, that she should have never been born.

    "She prayed for the first time on my dead body and watched my heart beat again..."

She remembered the choking darkness and then light. Above her she could see her mother, crying.

    "If I had died, I wouldn't have known how much she actually loves me and how God loves me too..."

Oh Kate, Oh God, thank you Jesus, Kate, I love you so much, don't leave me Kate, I love you so, so much.

    After that, mother and daughter felt the hands of God working. Kate's mother found a loving Christian husband that helped them out from the gutter. They kicked their addiction almost miraculously. Kate was back in school and active in the church. Her mother was with a steady job and also active in church.
In fact Kate was in the apartment today after visiting a church friend who turned out to be not home.

    Joseph was not convinced.

    He himself was a drug addict since he was fourteen and still at it now five years later. His parents were still together but fought every single time when laying eyes on each other. They didn't even care when he dropped out from high school at sixteen and continued to rob small stores for his drug money. Shop-lifting was a habit and he prided himself at never being caught.

    Some days though, he felt the despair getting to him through the cloud of his cigarette or the pounding of drugs in his blood. He tried multiple attempts to commit suicide... But in the end he always chickened out. Stepping back from the ledge at the last moment, stopping the blade just as it pierced his skin, downing pills but ended up throwing it up into the toilet. This time though, he had made the cut, watched his blood pour, confident this time he succeeded. Her was even starting to feeling the darkness wrap around his mind.

    Then his parents had walked in.

    He couldn't stop the scowl from twisting itself on his face or how his voice came out full of hate and loathing. He was always calm and hardly even showed any emotions at all even when on the verge of his death. This time, he just felt something snap.

    "Hah! He should have let me die, this forsaken life I have is worthless, all I known is death. Rather than being in this damn existence... A person like me would be better off DEAD!!"

    "THAT'S NOT TRUE!!!" Kate cut in, tears already forming in her eyes. From what she didn't know. Anger? Pity? "It wasn't true for me and neither for you!!"

    Hadn't he been listening?? She went through the same as him, finding her life worthless, wanting to end it. But it wasn't true, she wasn't worthless, no one was. The proof was right before her now. She felt a sudden sense of purpose like God was pushing her on. Pushing her to help this young man.

    "I, for one, wouldn't want you dead!! And I believe sincerely that I didn't die that day was because God wanted me to help you!!"

    Silence followed her outburst as the two glared at each other. Kate held her jaded gaze which made Joseph actually wanting, needing, to believe what she said was true. This girl... Caring about him? A stranger? Never in his life had someone said such things, not even his parents or his junkie friends he just visited.

He wanted to believe what she said.

He wanted to feel hope.

Joseph wanted it so bad.

    "Let's just get out of here..."

But he didn't know why he didn't accept it.

part two